The limited opportunities to mine for minerals on land is making the world consider deep seabed mining as an alternative. But this can pose major destruction to marine biodiversity, given our limited knowledge of the effects of disturbing the high seas, especially in oxygen-minimum zones.

Photo Courtesy: RSC Geological Consultants

In 2018, the first deep seabed mining will begin production in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea. The project­­—Solwara I, is to be executed by Nautilus Minerals, which has been granted the lease to mine the deep sea for metals. Nautilus holds approximately 450,000 sq km of exploration acreage in the western Pacific, covering Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga, as well as international waters in the eastern Pacific (The Telegraph, 2014). Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD),...